Design Mockups in Illustrator with Real-Life Objects

[Anubhav M]

Bring Your Brand to Life: Mockup is now GA with Smoother Performance and High-Quality Results. Vector art auto-adjusts onto planar surfaces realistically when you create a Mockup.

Try it in the app Create a mockup in a few simple steps.

Open Illustrator

Check out this quick tutorial by Tony Harmer, AKA Design Ninja, to know more about this feature.

Tony Harmer, Chief Enchantments Officer at Wizardry Ltd. 

Tony Harmer (a.k.a The Design Ninja) is a creative Swiss-army-knife and learning-content author with a three-plus-decade career that has given him a broad experience base to draw upon, including some time as a press operator, several years as a concept artist in IP development, several more as an instructor in many applications, delivering graphic production training worldwide, and a few more as a specialist solutions consultant for Adobe. He is the author of several video tutorials on LinkedIn Learning and running a growing YouTube channel. Tony is a popular speaker/presenter. His often-off-the-wall sessions always provide a ton of tips, techniques, insights, and inspirations delivered with humor and enthusiasm that is totally infectious.

Access Mockup

Access Mockup from a couple of locations: Object Menu > Mockup Window Menu > Mockup Right Click vector Object Contextual HUD Properties Panel

Personalize Mockup with Custom Images

Utilize your own raster image or select from the free curated image templates in the Mockup panel to create mockups. Also, you can preview your vector art on the free image templates within the Mockup panel and drag any desired template to the canvas.

Template Saving and Management

Save your mockup by selecting it and clicking the save icon in the Mockup panel. Templates appear in "Your Mockups," showing vector art positions. Add up to 20 templates, usable across all Illustrator documents. Note: Mockup from Illustrator 28.5 or earlier must be released and recreated for use as templates.

Edit your Artwork across multiple objects

After creating a Mockup, your artwork is automatically included in the Symbols Panel as a Symbol. If you wish to edit your artwork across multiple objects simultaneously, you can do this by simply double-clicking on your artwork. Once your edits are complete, they will be applied to all objects where the artwork has been used.

Blending Modes

For a more realistic appearance in your artwork, you can utilize the blending options found within the Transparency panel. These options allow you to incorporate details from the raster image, such as lighting effects, curves, and distortions.

Learn More & Provide Feedback

Feel free to provide your experiences and feedback by using the designated "Share Feedback" button. Also, you can express your liking/ disliking by clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down buttons and provide your thoughts through a survey.

Key Considerations for Best Results:

1. Elements such as mesh, graph, gradient mesh, freeform gradient, placed art, non-native art, raster, or raster effects aren't supported as mockup art. For unsupported elements, Object > Mockup > Preview Mockup / Create Mockup will be greyed out or a warning message will appear indicating that Mockup will lead to an appearance mismatch.
2. Vector art containing a clip group or expanding to a clip group such as pattern isn't supported as mockup art.
3. You can't create a mockup inside a mockup.
4. Quality issues can occur with reflective surfaces, small grooves, and images of the sky.
5. You can't directly apply vector effects from the Effect menu on vector art within a mockup group. Switch to symbol editing mode to apply vector effects.
6. Linked Illustrator files aren't supported. Embed the files to use them in mockup.
7. You can't create a mockup with multiple images.
8. GPU is required in your computer for Mockup to work.
9. You can't add mockup contaning multiple vector objects to Your Mockups.
10. You can't directly add mockup created in Illustrator 28.5 and earlier versions to Your Mockups.

For more details about this new feature, please click here.

We’d love to hear from you!

Try out the new "Mockup" feature and let us know your thoughts. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or need more tips!

If this was helpful, please click the Upvote icon in the top left corner of this post. Your feedback helps us improve the experience. Thank you!

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[Earth Oliver]

Love this! But it blows my mind that Illustrator implemented this before Photoshop.

[headTrix Training]

It makes sense that it's in illustrator! Illustrator is vector so it's all scalable and your logo  (which should be vector) will scale to fit any item ... not true when it comes to pixels (Photoshop)

[Alexandre Becquet]

Hi, great feature! Is it possible to put more than 1 symbol?

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi @Alexandre Becquet, as of now, the Mockup (Beta) feature in Illustrator allows for the use of one symbol at a time. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!

Best,

Anshul Saini

[Manolis24216209qpsn]

Hi. Are we allowed to use artwork created using a beta feature such as "Mockup" in final client-published work?

[Anshul_Saini]

Yes, @Manolis24216209qpsn, you can use artwork created using a beta feature like "Mockup" in your final client-published work. However, please ensure that you have the necessary licenses and permissions for any assets or elements used in your artwork. If you've used stock assets, make sure you have the appropriate licenses for those as well, whether they are from Adobe Stock or other third-party stock asset websites. This will ensure that you are in compliance with all legal requirements.

If you have any specific questions or need further clarification, feel free to ask.

Best,

Anshul Saini

[Manolis24216209qpsn]

Thanks Anshul

Regards
Manolis Stalford 

(personal details removed by moderator)

[Monika Gause]

It's wonky, but it's possible.

These are 3 Symbols:

https://youtu.be/Tls5TyRPG7c

[Alexandre Becquet]

Thank you both. Why i didn't try this!!!! 
I've the official answer and a tips!!.

[Brumby17]

You'd better fix bugs and make the interface consistent among your apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator.

[Alexandre Becquet]

@Brumby17 i don't thin kthis kind of post is good to write here. It's not Adobe it's the community. Sometimes you can find Adobe employees but feel free to share your ideas to make Adobe software more consistent.

[Nicktendo28]

What a great feature to help make for a faster turnaround for clients we design products for. 

[creative explorer]

I have to say by far this is pretty cool especially when I show this to my students next week.  We are always mocking things up but it does it seamlessly! 💖💖💖

[Michael Ambroise]

Many thanks !

[Ares Hovhannesyan]

In photoshop we can create mockup with Warp. Don't think that it is difficult.

[Earth Oliver]

OK, sure, but Ps is a manual process and this is automatic... which is light years beyond what Ps does.

[Monika Gause]

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@Earth Oliver  schrieb:

OK, sure, but Ps is a manual process and this is automatic... which is light years beyond what Ps does.

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The beauty in Photoshop is that once you have set it up, it's very simple to change the design and get a very polished result with the correct shading, embossing, gold and whatnot. 

[Dean_Utian]

Great feature 🙂

[Daniel Kramer]

Please add this to Photoshop soon. Thanks

[Monika Gause]

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@Daniel Kramer  schrieb:

Please add this to Photoshop soon. Thanks

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You need to post that here if you want it in Photoshop: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-ideas/how-do-i-write-a-feature-request/idi-p/1238... 

[headTrix Training]

this changes package design! so cool!

[@mj]

Been using this for a bit. It's dope!

[OussK]

Great feature, we should have it on photoshop also

[@mj]

Agreed. There are ways in Ps as you know. Not as easy tho.